(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an industrially favorable process for producing D-alanine.
D-alanine is an unnatural amino acid and it is a useful compound for a reagent as it is or for a raw material for synthesizing peptides and so on. Accordingly, the demand has been recently increasing.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
A number of processes for producing DL-alanine by means of a fermentation process using a microorganism belonging to the genus Brevibacterium have been hitherto known. An improved process for producing DL-alanine by using a microorganism belonging to the genus Brevibacterium and having sensitivity against threonine and methionine, also has been known (J. Gen. Appl. Microbiol. 1971, 17(2), 169-72).
However, it is inevitable to use a certain optical resolution operation for obtaining only D-alanine, because L-alanine is also produced by these process.
Namely, it has been never achieved yet to produce D-alanine by fermentation with low cost, simply and industrially favorably.